Real screenshot · MacBook Neo, macOS 27.0.1In short
Open System Settings, click General, then About. Click Name, enter your password and click Modify Settings, then type the new name and press Return.
Well, it feels a bit odd when your Mac turns up in AirDrop under somebody else's name, or shows your own name to everyone on the network. The reason is that a Mac is usually named after its first user, and that name is what other devices see on the network and in AirDrop. So change it if you bought the Mac second-hand or do not want your name shown.
4 of 4 steps show a real screenshot from our MacBook Neo.
Steps
- 1
Open System Settings
Click the Apple menu in the top left corner and choose System Settings.
- 2
Click General, then About
Click General in the sidebar. About is the first row on the General page.
On our MacBook Neo, About sits above Software Update and Storage.
- 3
Click Name
Name is the first row under the Mac's picture.
On our MacBook Neo, the About page shows MacBook Neo at the top, then Name, Chip Apple A18 Pro and Memory 8 GB.
- 4
Enter your password, click Modify Settings and type the new name
On our MacBook Neo, clicking Name did not make it editable straight away. macOS first showed "About is trying to modify your system settings." and asked for the password.
Type your password and click Modify Settings.
Apple says to select the current name, type the new one and press Return or click somewhere else to keep it.
If you do not see this option
- About is not where you expect On our MacBook Neo, About is the first row on the General page, not in the sidebar. You can also type About in the Search field at the top of the sidebar.
- The name cannot be edited On our MacBook Neo, the Name row stays locked until you enter your password in the prompt and click Modify Settings.
If this does not work
- The name did not change If you click Cancel in the password prompt, the name stays as it was. Click Name again and enter your password this time.
- The password is not accepted The prompt asks for the password of an administrator account on this Mac, and it is easy to reach for the wrong one. Use your Mac login password, not your Apple Account password.
- The local hostname still shows the old name That is normal. Apple says you can change it separately: open System Settings, General, Sharing, and click Edit in the Local hostname section.
Good to know
Apple calls this the computer name. It identifies the Mac on your local network, and other people on the network find your Mac by it.
There is a second name, the local hostname. It is the computer name with .local added, and with hyphens in place of spaces: My Computer becomes My-Computer.local. Other devices use it to find shared services on the Mac.
To change the local hostname yourself, open System Settings, General, Sharing, and click Edit in the Local hostname section at the bottom.
Don't worry, renaming the Mac does not change your user account name or your home folder, so your files stay where they were.
A new name is a good moment to check the login password too: How to change your password on a Mac.
Selling or giving the Mac away instead? How to factory reset a Mac.
macOS 27 compared with macOS 26: We rewrote steps 1, 2, 3 and 4 to match the macOS 27 screens. The macOS 26 page keeps the steps and screenshots as they were.
Version history: the macOS 26 version of this guide, with its own screenshots.
About this guide
- Device
- Mac
- Shown on
- macOS 27.0.1 (MacBook Neo)
- App
- System Settings
- Path
- System Settings › General › About › Name
- Real screenshots
- 4 of 4 steps
- Checked
- October 2026
- Sources
- 1 official, linked below
Sources
Links checked October 2026. Menus and features can change with updates.Did this guide work for you?
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